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����If you've checked out a number of Ranma 1/2 sites, you probably won't need the little history lesson. But for those of you who have probably just discovered this little treasure for the first time, perhaps a little background is in order.
����Rumiko Takahashi is the source of this series -- She's responsible for many other excellent manga based anime series that you might want to check out (my favorites include Inu-Yasha and Rumik Theater), but most people discover Ranma 1/2 early on -- it could be said that a lot of us currently interested in anime didn't come to it through the superheroes in Star Blazers, Voltron or Gundam...but through the antics of this one martial arts romantic comedy with the large ensemble cast of characters.
����Descriptions from various sources will describe this series as the story of a typical Japanese family, the Tendo's, living a typically Japanese life until this one disruptive element enters their lives. That element is Ranma Saotome, but it easily arguable that the Tendo's were hardly typical before or after Ranma and his father come to live with the Tendo's.
����The Tendo's are a family of four: the father, Soun Tendo is a lifelong martial artist, the head of the clan and owner of the dojo that forms the center of life for most of the Ranma 1/2 story. He is a widower with three daughters, and it is his concern that this school of his remains in place through the ages that prompts him to engage one of his daughters in marriage to his best friend/training partner/fellow sucker Genma Saotome's son, when he comes of age to marry. |
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����Kasumi, the eldest, has been a surrogate mother to her family since the death of her mother. At 19, she appears to have completed school and has been in charge of running the household for some time. Demure, soft-spoken and unfailingly kind, she is often portrayed as something of an airhead and less than wordly-wise.
����Nabiki, the middle child, 17, shows a lot of the qualities of a mercenary, particularly when it comes to money. She is not easily impressed or fooled and often comes off worldly, aloof and unapproachable. In searching for the high ground, she often uses situations to her advantage ruthlessly -- often the source for many laughs, you wouldn't want to have her on your bad side. Ever. Nabiki knows where the bodies are buried, who put them there and how that knowledge can make her a little extra cash.
����Akane, the youngest at 16, is where most of our focus lands -- even being the youngest, she has been given the responbility for inheriting the family business. Largely because she's also the one most like her martial-artist father -- but also because her sisters volunteer her for bridal duty in short order once Ranma and his father show up to take her father up on the engagement agreement.
And what a day that was...
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����You see, Soun Tendo stopping travelling the countryside with his friend Genma Saotome - but Genma had not. Taking his son, he had travelled the world to learn every martial arts method and discipline known (and some that one would have been better off not known) since Ranma had been very young. With some mixed results. The last place they had visited, a mystical place in China called Jusenkyo, has had a lasting effect.
����It was a land of many little springs and ponds, purported to be a prime training ground. What Genma didn't know (and couldn't ask - he never spoke a word of Chinese) was that this was a land of cursed springs - each one with a different curse. Something has drowned in each one of those thousand little ponds -- and if you fall in, you take on the body of what drowned there. (That's right - if you fall into the spring of drowned NT Server, you're left with non-functioning e-mail.) The curse is partial unless you're dunked in the spring twice - then, it's final. Partial in that every time you're hit with cold water, the curse appears and you turn into something else -- but it's reversed with a splash of hot water.
����So what kind of spring did Ranma and his father land in? His father landed in the spring of drowned panda -- not so bad. But poor Ranma landed in the spring of drowned girl. Very cute, red-headed, busty girl. His worst nightmare. |
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����But maybe not the worst thing that ever happened to Akane - you see, she hates boys. To Kasumi and Nabiki, it's a perfect match -- and they're off the hook.
����Genma and Ranma appeared at the Tendo dojo on a very cold, rainy afternoon one day - in their cursed forms. From the outset, it was clear that Akane was the one most likely to make the best of it, befriending Genma Saotome's "daughter" and finding that they had a lot in common. Unfortunately, Ranma didn't tell her right off the bat about the curse, and Akane found a strange boy in the bathtub and freaked. Bad move. One of the things you never do to Akane is try to get one by her (with Nabiki as an older sister, who can blame her?), or lie to her. Akane has a temper and the power to back it up -- Ranma ended up getting clobbered with many inanimate objects and the battle was on. Engaged...and always at war. Or are they?
����As the story develops, more characters come into the circle formed by the Tendo's and the Saotome's -- some friends, some allies, some enemies and all of them interested in being involved in Ranma's life. Anime's common theme of a male character involved with many interesting female characters on a romantic level is not avoided here in the least. The twist here is that some of the interest Ranma sparks is not always from the women - there is always the possibility that there is another man in love with the girl he turns into half the time, hence the title. And in the middle of it all, an arranged marriage to a girl he can't admit he loves, who can't admit loves him (and does), and all of the baggage Genma loaded on him while training his son all those years on the road that later comes to visit them.
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since 1/12/01